[quote]Speaking of social media, Twitter’s exhibiting classic death throes, or in the immortal words of Spinal Tap, their audience and “appeal is becoming more selective.” Unlike friendster, livejournal, myspace, etc, they’re doing it to themselves by first “shadowbanning” and now outright mass banning accounts.[endquote]

The patent itself is ridiculous, granted. But consider that once it is patented, NOBODY else can even build such a system without facing very expen$ive lawsuits. And once such a system exists, it could well be applied to other areas than journalism, such as, say, the veracity of politicians? The veracity of Sony executives?

My local sports bar also has a Hofbrau. So... for Game 7 of the World Series, my wife and I went there, got a nice dinner and a drink each and then watched the game for less than the cost of one month of cable with E$PN.

And I make no secret of the fact that I cut my cord back in 1992 and haven't looked back except to pull down and trash the slowly rotting cable more than a decade later.

Remember, legal actions are EXPEN$IVE in the extreme, and bankrupting your enemy (cf. Gawker vs. Mr. Moneybags) creates a very strong "keep your head down" effect not just on the target, but anybody else who might even come close to doing as Take Two did.